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A few words about carefully orchestrated spontaneous Islamic rage

The Islamic world seems to have an unlimited capacity for hurt feelings. Sparked by a cartoon, an article, a film, a taxi passenger who MAY be carrying duty-free alcohol, a blind bus passenger with her seeing-eye dog.

Anything that doesn’t meet the standards of the self-appointed guardians of the Islamic faith can automatically and immediately unleash massive, carefully orchestrated “spontaneous days of rage”, from Afghanistan to Libya, from Bangladesh to Tunisia, from Sudan to Egypt.

The outrage expressed over perceived insults to Islam by the foremost leaders of the Islamic faith could perhaps be taken seriously – even at the risk of compromising the West’s dedication to freedom of speech – were it not the fact that it is these very same people who openly insult other religions in the most racist, vicious and disgusting ways imaginable. In mosques, TV studios, the printed media, social media, radio.

Not convinced? See the following short video clip, courtesy of MEMRI TV, entitled “New Trends in Arab Anti-Semitism” presented at a session of the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva, September 28, 2010.

It would thus appear that insulting religion is in fact perfectly acceptable conduct – provided it is perpetrated by fanatical followers of the Islamic faith and targets followers of the Jewish faith. Insulting religion is only deemed unacceptable when it is Islam that is insulted.

In all the “expert analysis” prompted by the vile murders of US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and his three colleagues, and the subsequent attacks on other embassies – including the German embassy in Sudan, for heaven’s sake! – a few salient points arise.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s first words following the murders were not of support for the embassy staff but of condemnation of the idiotic film that was assumed to have ignited the Islamic flame of violence. This is politically correct appeasement gone mad.

Self-proclaimed experts claim that it was this film that “caused” the widespread violence in the Islamic world. That is much the same as claiming that it was a woman’s attractive perfume that “caused” her to be raped. Wearing an enticing perfume is no more justification for being raped, than the making of a film in California is for killing Americans in Benghazi. Unfortunately some of these “experts” are within the US administration; they should now be looking for new jobs – starting from the very top.

It is time for the West to acknowledge the hydra that is Islamism: a violent, racist, global, political force hiding behind the protective shield of the religion of Islam. It is a force hell-bent on recreating the glories of old in the form of the Caliphate – the spread of the religion of Islam come what may. Christians, Jews, Bahai’ists, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists and others living in peaceful coexistence in the West may be perfectly happy to accept both one another and Muslims as diverse peoples living side by side. But the radical interpreters of Islam – the Islamists who today have seized the sole right to interpret what Islam is supposed to mean – do not want to live alongside others; they demand mass conversion to Islam – or mass destruction. How difficult is it to see that Islam is a religion, whereas Islamism is a violent political movement focused on the destruction of Western values? Only a politician could fail to see the distinction.

Question: So a person with US citizenship says or does something that is offensive to Islam (or indeed any other group). Why does the US government feel the need to apologise on his behalf? We’re still waiting for the Egyptian, Palestinian Authority, Saudi, Hamas, Jordanian and other governments to apologise for the disgusting comments about Jews made by their citizens. And we’re still waiting for the Bangladeshi government to apologise for the fact that people in Dhaka carried a banner vilifying Christians and Jews – yesterday. The list goes on and on.

We hear time and again that Islam is the Religion of Peace, and of course it would be stupid to suggest that all followers of Islam are violent jihadis intent on killing followers of other religions. That is patently obviously not the case. We hear that the vast majority of Muslims are as peace-loving and embracing of co-existence as are followers of any other religion. That is no doubt the case. The problem is that this vast – silent – majority is just that: silent. Cowed into silence out of fear of their violent, radical co-religionists. Which means that since the majority of peace-loving Muslims cannot or will not deal with the fanatics in their midst, ridding their own religion of the fanatics who claim sole right to represent all Muslims, then it has to be followers of other religions who have this unenviable task. Which of course feeds into the paranoid Islamist discourse that Islam is under attack by “crusaders” and “infidels”. So, in the West, we are damned if we do act to save ourselves, and doubly damned if we don’t.

The time has therefore come for us to state clearly and proudly that we don’t really care whether or not we hurt the feelings of racist, extremist, fanatical Islamists – we will continue to aggressively protect our freedom of speech in the West and, in doing so, protect the freedom of the vast majority of Muslims in the West who do not subscribe to the Islamist mindset.

What is it we are so afraid of in the West? Are we afraid that by aggressively confronting Islamist intransigence – to the benefit of the majority of moderate Muslims – we will suddenly lose our right to continue donating millions upon millions of dollars to regimes that in turn export just two things back to us – hatred and a flood of Islamist fanatics? The US alone supports the anti-US Muslim Brotherhood regime of Egypt to the tune of 1.3 billion dollars a year. Tunisia gets 300 million US dollars, Yemen 345 million. Yet these are the countries that lead the way in anti-US sentiment and violence. And that’s before we even begin to factor in EU funding of these countries, funding sorely needed in Europe’s own troubled economies.

Finally, one simple question: when was the last time you heard of Christians or Jews outraged at affronts to their religion, going around burning buildings, slaughtering people, demonstrating on the streets of London, Sydney and Paris for the right to “behead those who insult our religion”?

Never heard of such a thing? That’s because it never happened. But it is everyday discourse in the Islamist world. While mainstream moderate Muslims observe in silence.

So Obama, Hollande, Cameron, Merkel et al: get your act together and follow the brave and principled lead of Canada’s Stephen Harper, who closed the Canadian embassy in Iran and ordered Iran’s embassy to close owing to Teheran’s overt anti-Semitic statements, violent Islamist actions and its role in perpetuating sectarian strife in Syria and the Lebanon. Perhaps the time has come to disengage from the Islamic world and let them solve their own differences. After all, what are we getting in return for all our money, efforts, and blood?